Jim Morrison

Venice Beach holds a special place in rock 'n' roll history as the birthplace of the band the Doors.

One day in the summer of 1965, UCLA film school classmates Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek sat on the beach and mused about forming a band. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today, the Venice Beach Poets Monument commemorates artists including Morrison. Photographer and history buff John Boylan captured this photo of a young girl inspecting the lyrics to "The Soft Parade," the title track of the band's fourth album.

Related "Jim Morrison" Articles

Venice Beach holds a special place in rock 'n' roll history as the birthplace of the band the Doors.
One day in the summer of 1965, UCLA film school classmates Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek sat on the beach and mused about forming a band. The rest,...

Music biopics often seem ubiquitous, but it's not always easy to drum up movies about famous tune-smiths.
Take Don Cheadle's in-the-making movie about the jazz trumpet player and composer Miles Davis, which he's been trying to get started for years. On...

Over the course of two hours inside a small dressing room at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, Val Kilmer ages 20 years.
His hair turns a crazy, curly white, a strong mustache sprouts on his upper lip, and deep bags appear under his eyes. Eventually the actor is...

Momentum appears to be building for a reunion of surviving Doors members Robby Krieger and John Densmore to perform together in memory of the group’s keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, who died of cancer in May

It was a battle that John Densmore wishes didn't require the beating of his drum, but one that his conscience wouldn’t let him sidestep when he decided to sue his former bandmates in the Doors, keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger....

Ripples continue from the death on Monday of Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, including a night on VH1 Classic devoted to the band’s music and the rescheduling of an event with Doors drummer John Densmore. Manzarek died at a hospital in Germany at age 74...

The music that keyboardist Ray Manzarek made as part of the Doors helped define the 1960s, and also was a crucial part of the Southern California music scene in the latter half of that decade. Two generations of L.A. music met in the late 1970s when...

The death Monday of Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek was a sad mark in the ledger of L.A. rock history.
But although the Doors are a classic-rock radio staple, the band's vision of L.A. -- seductive and evil, gaudy and threatening -- has stayed powerful...

When Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek died Monday, he left behind a musical legacy that included 15 singles that made Billboard's hot 100 list, including the songs "Light My Fire," "Waiting for the Sun," "Touch Me,"...

Keyboardist Ray Manzarek, the founding member of the Doors whose piercing electric organ sound defined their career-establishing hit “Light My Fire” and most of the L.A. group’s cornerstone songs, died Monday in Germany after a lengthy battle with bile...

Jimmy Fallon, who has made high art out of his impersonation of Neil Young, gets a shot at getting inside the mind -- and tight leather pants -- of another Rock and Roll Hall of Famemember on his show tonight when he fills in for the Doors’ lead singer...